The present invention relates to a troubleshooting method and system for performing troubleshooting in a telecommunication network such as the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) or the NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephone).
A Network Management System (NMS) is a tool for monitoring and administration of medium to large networks such as telecommunication networks. The NMS creates and constantly updates a data base on all servers or network elements of the network. The NMS requires no local agent and detection and monitoring are performed fully automatic, but controllable.
FIG. 1 shows a principle block diagram of an NMS. According to FIG. 1, a server 1 of the NMS is provided which controls network elements NE1 to NEn directly by using the Q3 protocoll or MML (Man Machine Language), or through a generic agent system or mediator 2. The control of the network elements NE1 to NEn may be performed by using the CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) technology which specifies mechanisms and interfaces for building distributed object oriented applications.
The mediator 2 acts as an interpreter and filter, sending commands to the network elements NE1 to NEn it controls, and collecting information about the managed elements. By using such mediators, telecommunication service providers can integrate legacy systems as well as new network elements into the network management system. This enables them to save time and money on network management, at the same time as increasing the quality of the service they provide to customers.
Manual intervention is required for example when critical alarms are received from network elements and actions like configuation changes of radio network parameters or software updates are needed. Usually, operating persons at the NMS site control the state of the network and deal with problems at once. The NMS can alert specified operating persons using email, message pager and even a short message service of GSM cell phones. If a regional NMS site is not manned 24 hours per day, a Network Management Center (NMC) may be used for controlling the networks of the regional NMS site during the absence of the operating persons, e.g. in the night time.
Troubleshooting of NMS systems is a very frequent, time- and resource-consuming task, wherein the effectiveness of the troubleshooting process has a big impact on customer satisfaction.
In the known systems, troubleshooting is carried out by sending requests for information by mail or by phone in order to find out problems concerning e.g. directory structures, file protections, data base contents, user and group settings, authorities, log files, contents of miscellaneous configuration files, etc. However, this is a very time consuming and tedious process.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a troubleshooting method and apparatus for a network management system, by means of which troubleshooting can be performed in a more effective manner.
This object is achieved by a method for performing troubleshooting in a telecommunication network, comprising the steps of:
providing a probing program at a site of said network;
triggering the probing program with a predetermined parameter defining a probing action of the probing program,
when a problem or malfunction has been detected; and reporting the result of the triggered probing action.
Additionally, the above object is achieved by an apparatus for performing troubleshooting in a telecommunication network, comprising:
loading means for loading a probing program;
probing means for performing a predetermined probing action based on said probing program in response to an input parameter defining said probing action; and
filing means for generating a file comprising the result of said probing action.
Accordingly, troubleshooting can be made more effective, since the probing program or software probe can be triggered with certain parameters determined on the basis of a rough evaluation as to the part of the system where the problem might have occurred. Thus, the time required for troubleshooting and the resulting downtimes of the telecommunication network can be reduced.
Preferably, the troubleshooting may be performed in a network management system of the telecommunication network. In this case, the result of the triggered probing action may be reported to a supplier of the network management system. Thus, the reporting can be performed by the customer NMS site personnel. The generated file with the results of the xe2x80x9cprobingxe2x80x9d can then be sent together with a malfunction report to RandD personnel of the NMS supplier.
The probing actions of the probing program may comprise listing a directory structure, performing a predefined query, e.g. an SQL query, setting a system querying, issuing management commands and/or listing the content of a specific file.
Preferably, probing actions are defined in a configuration file, which may be extended when the probing program is enhanced by the NMS supplier.
Furthermore, the result of the triggered probing action may be compressed and encrypted into a file to be delivered to the NMS supplier together with the malfunction report. Thereby, the results can be easily delivered by email to the NMS RandD personnel.
Preferably, the probing program is delivered to the NMS customer with each software release of the network management system.
The probing program may be loaded and executed at any work station or server at the customer site.